Occupy Protester has been in jail for the last three weeks for writing on the sidewal

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He may well have wanted to get arrested, but it doesn't change the legality of the city's action. If the city isn't prosecuting all sidewalk chalkers, then they are being selective on content, and that is a no-no.

Does the law require a complaint? If so, then there's the difference. You cited, among other things, sidewalk art in front of stores and hopscotch grids. In both cases, the piece of sidewalk in question belongs to someone who is not complaining about the chalking. If the property owner complains, then the police have a cause of action. If not, then they don't. If somebody is chalking up my driveway with inflammatory language or rhetoric, then I can exercise my right as the property owner to have him arrested for vandalizing my property. It doesn't matter whether the medium is chalk or paint, except for the calculation of physical damages, so much as whether the perp has the right to mark up something that doesn't belong to him.

Does the law require a complaint? If so, then there's the difference. You cited, among other things, sidewalk art in front of stores and hopscotch grids. In both cases, the piece of sidewalk in question belongs to someone who is not complaining about the chalking. If the property owner complains, then the police have a cause of action. If not, then they don't. If somebody is chalking up my driveway with inflammatory language or rhetoric, then I can exercise my right as the property owner to have him arrested for vandalizing my property. It doesn't matter whether the medium is chalk or paint, except for the calculation of physical damages, so much as whether the perp has the right to mark up something that doesn't belong to him.

Funny how Nova equated what this guy was doing with children drawing hopscotch grids. Just goes to show that liberals are still children.

He may well have wanted to get arrested, but it doesn't change the legality of the city's action. If the city isn't prosecuting all sidewalk chalkers, then they are being selective on content, and that is a no-no.

Funny how Nova equated what this guy was doing with children drawing hopscotch grids. Just goes to show that liberals are still children.

Thankfully your involvement with the law is babysitting sociopaths and not dealing with the constitutional rights of free men. But we appreciate that you are keeping the sociopaths locked up, without prisons and barring summary execution there would be no liberty.

I was referring to public sidewalks, that private sidewalks are private is a given.

Is it? Most cities claim authority over sidewalks, even those in front of private homes or businesses. The fact that a home or business owner can be fined for litter in front of their homes demonstrates that municipal authority. I may be responsible for the upkeep of my sidewalk and liable for anything that happens on it, but the city governs its condition and, to some degree, its use. As a homeowner, I could not block off the sidewalk and charge a toll for passage in front of it. Regardless, the point is that many laws require a complaint to be filed before the city will take action, unless the act is witnessed by a police officer, in which case the officer is the complainant. Also, as the OP article pointed out, the perp received multiple warnings. If an officer were to approach a child who was drawing a hopscotch grid or a sidewalk artist and informed them of the law, I'd say that they'd comply after the first warning. Thus, the absence of prosecutions isn't proof of selective enforcement so much as selective compliance, i.e., the perp who refused to stop drawing after multiple warnings was arrested, while the child who stopped at the first warning was not.

Originally Posted by NJCardFan

Funny how Nova equated what this guy was doing with children drawing hopscotch grids. Just goes to show that liberals are still children.

PJ O'Rourke had a great line about that. A couple actually:

Wealth is, for most people, the only honest and likely path to liberty. With money comes power over the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation. Businesses can be started, homes built, communities formed, religions practiced, educations pursued. But liberals aren't very interested in such real and material freedoms. They have a more innocent -- not to say toddlerlike -- idea of freedom. Liberals want the freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums.

Thankfully your involvement with the law is babysitting sociopaths and not dealing with the constitutional rights of free men. But we appreciate that you are keeping the sociopaths locked up, without prisons and barring summary execution there would be no liberty.

So this person was Constitutionally protected to deface public property? Before you sound off about arresting others, people speed all day. There just aren't enough patrol officers to catch them all. However, the cop has to pick and choose who to pull over. There isn't anything nefarious about it. They can't catch everyone but they can catch some.